During a demonstration against a planned terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Brunsbüttel on Saturday, activists occupied tracks in an industrial area and caused the Kiel Canal to be blocked with canoes.
According to information from the organizers of the “Endeände” alliance, rails to two industrial companies on both sides of the Kiel Canal were blocked.
Several activists used canoes on the canal near Hochdonn (Dithmarschen district).
The shipping traffic was stopped.
The lock has now been lifted and the channel is free again, said a police spokesman on Saturday evening.
At the beginning of the elevator in the morning, the demonstrators had settled on an intersection and blocked it for some time.
The police were on duty with several hundred officers from different federal states.
A spokeswoman for “Endegebiet” accused the security of a company of throwing stones at the demonstrators.
A police spokesman said there was a video and asked witnesses to the incident to come forward.
Around 2000 participants in the protests had already set up a tent camp in a park in the city before the weekend.
From there they made their way to the ferry across the Kiel Canal on Saturday morning, which reaches the Elbe estuary in Brunsbüttel.
The campaign was under the motto "Clean gas is a dirty lie".
"End of the terrain" is supported in the resistance against the plant by the German environmental aid and the local "climate alliance against LNG".
The construction of a terminal for handling liquefied natural gas is planned in Brunsbüttel.
The city lies on the Schleswig-Holstein side of the Elbe estuary.
The southern bank belongs to Lower Saxony.
The Kiel Canal reaches the Elbe in Brunsbüttel.
There are several chemical companies in the city.
The organizations reject the import of LNG in view of climate change. He contradicts the climate goals and the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on climate protection, said Constantin Zerger of the German environmental aid on Friday. He announced that Deutsche Umwelthilfe would use all legal means to stop the project. In view of the declining demand for natural gas, it would not be economical to operate. The demonstrators also oppose the extraction of natural gas by fracking. They see it as a destruction of the livelihoods of people in the affected areas and a continuation of colonialism.
Fracking for natural gas production is used in the USA, among others.
In this process, water - sometimes mixed with chemicals - is pressed under high pressure into gas-containing rock layers to create cracks and thus release the gas.
Fracking has come under fire for its environmental impact.
The Kiel coalition of the CDU, Greens and FDP had anchored the LNG terminal project in the coalition agreement, but a party congress of the Greens later moved away from it.
Environment Minister Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens) said that he would like the terminal to be geared towards green gases such as hydrogen from the outset, if possible.